The material notes a sharp increase in revenues observed worldwide, including companies from Russia and the Middle East.
The authors of the ranking were unable to obtain data from all Russian companies; however, the combined revenue of two Russian manufacturers that made it into the top 100 increased by 40%, totaling approximately $25.5 billion.
The majority of the profits were generated by the state corporation "Rostec." As the report's authors indicated, the company does not directly own production facilities but controls numerous other arms manufacturers that had previously appeared in the top 100 ranking. However, this time SIPRI was unable to obtain their data.
The list includes 41 companies from the United States with a combined revenue of $317 billion, which accounts for only half of the total revenue from arms sales among the top 100 companies; nevertheless, this figure represents a 2.5% increase compared to the previous year.
At the same time, two major global corporations, Lockheed Martin and RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon Technologies Corporation until June 2023), reported a decline in revenues. This is attributed to logistical challenges, particularly concerning the aviation and missile industries.
Former Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2014 to 2016, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, analyzed the report and noted that out of the 100 top defense companies, 87 are from NATO member countries and their allies (excluding China and Russia, he omitted India).
"It is hard to comprehend how such a powerful force (not to mention that NATO countries account for half of the world's military power and half of the global economy) lags behind North Korea (under sanctions since 1950), Iran (under sanctions since 1979), and Russia (under sanctions since 2014) in terms of the volume and pace of weapon production. There is no doubt about the qualitative advantages, but Russia's war against Ukraine has put the quantitative metric in the spotlight," Yatsenyuk emphasized.